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President Donald Trump’s Interior Department is now 0-2 attempting to get a land swap to facilitate a road out of the village of King Cove through the courts.
U.S. District Court of Alaska Judge John W. Sedwick threw out a July 2019 land exchange agreement between Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and King Cove Corp. leaders on June 1, marking the second time in just 14 months that the courts have rejected such a deal that is a precursor to building a long-sought but contentious emergency access road through what is now wilderness-designated territory in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge on the Alaska Peninsula.
Sedwick ruled that Bernhardt rushed the process to complete the land deal with the Alaska Native village corporation and in doing so violated both the federal Administrative Procedures Act and the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, or ANILCA, that largely guides federal land-use policy in the state.